


Fast Car

by Aurënfaie (Aurenfaie)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Developing Relationship, Happy Birthday Adam Parrish, M/M, Post-The Raven King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurenfaie/pseuds/Aur%C3%ABnfaie
Summary: It was odd, but she could remember a lot more of Ronan touching Adam than Ronan touching Gansey. Usually punches to the shoulder, or an arm over the back of Adam's chair, or pushing him through the door. Blue wondered if Adam noticed.





	Fast Car

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow, it's been over a year since I wrote anything. I'm not going to say this is what I wanted to write or post, but I was thinking about other people noticing Ronan and Adam's relationship developing (under the assumption that Gansey did not share what Adam told him in the Raven King). Better to write something and get it out there, right? 
> 
> I have other chapters for this planned out, but in the event I never write them, here's Blue's perspective. 
> 
> [not remotely beta-ed, hit me up if you notice any errors!]

The dynamics of driving had changed recently. With the addition of Henry, any car they took was automatically full. It was disconcerting, for a while. Noah's spot wasn't empty anymore, not the way it sometimes was even when Noah was around. Now it was full full full _full_.

They hadn't exactly been the quietest bunch before, but Henry added a whole new level to the noise. He seemed to have a phobia of silence and pushed for conversation at all times. It was good, in a way. Henry himself wasn't alway the one talking, and the silence tended to invite thoughts and memories and spiraling down into the minutes or hours between breaths. So talking let them all live in the present.

Where people sat also changed. Usually, when they rode in the Pig, Gansey (or sometimes Blue) would drive, and Blue (or sometimes Gansey) would ride in the passenger seat. Adam always set in the middle of the back, with Ronan on his right and Henry on his left. It wasn't far off from how things had been before. 

But sometimes, the Pig would break down. Just because it was a dreamed thing now didn't mean that it wasn't a piece of shit car, and Ronan may have slipped nostalgia into its frame. What was the Pig if it didn't break down? They couldn't fit comfortably into Henry's car, and Adam refused to make anyone ride in the Hondayotta, so they took Ronan's car. 

In the BMW, Ronan (or sometimes Adam) would drive, and Adam (or sometimes Ronan) would ride in the passenger seat. The back was up for grabs, which generally meant that as the smallest, Blue sat wedged between Henry and Gansey. This also meant that she had an unobstructed view of the front of the car. 

In the back of the car on the way out to the area now known as " _The Area Formerly Known As Cabeswater_ ", named by Henry, Blue had given up on listening to Henry and Gansey's excited chatter. It had been interesting at first, speculation about the Pig's hubcaps out in the forest, time travel, magic, all the things she wanted to know. But then it had dissolved into the first settlers of the area and all sorts of historical things Gansey knew far too much about, and that Henry clearly knew nothing about but fully intended to build wild theories on. This sort of thing tended to happen a lot, and as they gestured and rambled around her, Blue let her thoughts wander. 

The music in the BWM, she noticed, was quieter than usual, probably owing to the fact that Adam had been given control of Ronan's phone and therefore music selection. She hadn't really thought about it much. Ronan liked thumping bass and electronics and the volume turned up so loud that no one could think. She almost wondered if the new features in Ronan's musical collection were for the sake of Adam's single hearing ear. He could be nice like that, if he wanted. 

Ronan had been a lot nicer lately. Blue guessed that was what happened when you lost your best friend and your mother and only got one back. Or maybe it was the resolution at last that caused the change. She'd heard him talking on the phone with Declan once since then, and Adam hadn't even had to pry the phone away before he could smash it against something. 

He'd been careful with Gansey too. Ronan had always been Gansey's sharp-toothed knight, but now instead of looking outward for threats, he looked in, at Gansey himself. Their king, he'd learned, could not be trusted with his own safety. He was too willing to sacrifice for them, and not just the trivial things he could give away. Blue understood Ronan in that new fear. Anyone who had been there understood that Gansey was willing to give anything and everything for them. 

Gansey was one thing though, and Adam was another. When she first came to know this little group of Raven boys, she hadn't been under the impression that Ronan and Adam were actually friends. They were friends with Gansey, not each other. In fact, Gansey had seemed to be the only glue keeping any of them together. She'd since reassessed her understanding of them. They were all so stupidly in love with each other in a way that she was pretty sure was odd for teenaged boys. They postured, sure, got hostile and pissy and fumbled for rank, but they'd definitely all piled themselves onto Gansey's mattress before without much concern for personal space. She didn't mind it, of course. Boys should be able to do the things that girls do. She'd be disappointed if any one of them were too concerned about their masculinity to express the endless affection they felt for each other. 

But still, Adam was different. He always seemed to be on the side of things, not quite touching, never impeding on anyone else's space. Now he was being pulled into Ronan's space, like Ronan thought Adam would feel more comfortable if the bridge was built by someone else. It was odd, but she could remember a lot more of Ronan touching Adam than Ronan touching Gansey. Usually punches to the shoulder, or an arm over the back of Adam's chair, or pushing him through the door. She wondered if Adam noticed.

And then the thought floated away. Adam was looking at Ronan from the passenger seat, Ronan's phone in hand. A familiar strum of guitar hummed under the sound of Gansey and Henry's excited conversation. 

"Why do you have this song on your phone?" he asked. "Not really your style." His lips twitched. Blue stared, hidden by the back of the BMW's seats. 

When Ronan didn't say anything, Adam kicked his feet up onto the dashboard. Ronan's knuckles turned white around the rim of the steering wheel. Adam continued staring until Ronan swatted at him. "Man, whatever," Ronan grumbled, and looked as far away from Adam as he could.

Adam grinned. He turned back toward the passenger side window, his hearing ear toward the conversation that Blue had completely lost track of. Ronan watched the road. They were silent as the song started. Blue recognized it now, something she'd never expected to hear coming from Ronan's phone. But as Adam started to quietly sing along, barely audible under Gansey and Henry, the pieces started to fall into place. 

Blue couldn't hear him well, but she wasn't about to break the quiet moment in the front seat. Even from her seat, she could see the bright red blush of heat building across Ronan's cheeks and over his ears. That was new. Not the blushing, Ronan was pale as all get-out and would turn red the second anything conflicted with his self-image. If she thought about it, Blue supposed that even blushing at Adam wasn't anything new. But when had it started? And since when did Adam sing along to songs in Ronan's car and since when did Ronan's car play anything anyone could sing along to? 

Adam, for his part, seemed more content than Blue could ever recall seeing him. It wasn't the kind overwhelming joy at seeing Gansey's chest rise and fall after being still for so long, or the way he smiled so hard his cheeks seemed like they'd tear after getting back the first of the many acceptance letters that came in through the winter and spring. Now he just seemed happy in his own skin, sitting in the front of Ronan's car and listening to Tracy Chapman of all things. Adam was right, this really wasn't to Ronan's taste. 

Or maybe it was. Ronan was watching Adam out of the corner of his eye. His fingers kept twitching around the steering wheel like he wanted to do something but didn't have the nerve to try. 

At a lull in the song, Ronan took a deep breath and said, "I have something I want to do. Later. At the Barns."

Adam raised his brows and studied him. Then he looked back at Blue and Gansey and Henry. Blue's eyes shot away and she hoped she hadn't been caught eavesdropping.

"Yea," said Adam. "Ok."

Blue's mind flooded with a dozen things that 'something' could be, not all of which she was proud of. She was still catching up to whatever was going on in the front of the car, she had no idea how far it could go, what it was, what it meant. She only hoped Gansey didn't notice. She knew Gansey, and she knew he'd try to make sense of it by strutting right into the middle of it and demanding answers she doubted anyone had. Maybe it could be a secret just a little bit longer.

Out of nowhere, Ronan interrupted her thoughts by belting out a line of the song, very much off-key and very much too loud for the crowded car. 

"So I remember we were driving, driving in your car, speed so fast I felt like I was drunk—" Adam lunged over the center console as he tried to cover Ronan's mouth and the car swerved. "City lights laid out before us—" 

"Ronan, pay attention to the road!" Gansey shouted from the back, pushing Blue aside so he could look out the front. The car righted itself in the lane and Henry grumbled something about either being killed by the singing or the car, but Blue was trying to watch Ronan and Adam again. They were back to the boys she knew, awkward and giddy and at attention to their commander. 

Gansey huffed and fell back into his seat. "Sorry Jane, I don't know what got into him."

Blue had a feeling she knew, but she shrugged and settled into the middle seat as Gansey and Henry started up again, oblivious. For once, she was glad these two kings were so bright and so loud that they couldn't see their own feet. That gave everyone else some time. 

They were all still so very young after all, and there was time to figure everything out. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've all heard Tracy Chapman's _Fast Car_ , given that it came out in 1988, but if you haven't...[here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5owOoyxEMxc). It strikes me as a very Adam Parrish song.


End file.
